80s Encore with The IPC and TMI: We Let The Prophecy Come To Pass With SHEENA: Queen Of The Jungle (Part 2)

Our story goes . . . one particularly uneventful Saturday evening, on a particularly starry night, in the early weeks of 1981, two boys, having never met, watch the same episode of BBC’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Hours later, they both dream the same dream of being Arthur Dent (and totally making it with Trillian) when Zaphod Beeblebrox initiates the Heart of Gold’s Infinite Improbability Drive. When they awoke, their fears that the dream was real are found untrue. Their lives have not been altered and life goes on the same. Until one day, quite recently actually, each still unknowing the other exists, they arrive home and discover that their easy chairs have been turned into boxes of pristine 1980’s video cassettes. And their bags of Tostitos’ and jars of dip, fully functioning VCRs and remotes. They take to Twitter and it is here that the Eric from The IPC and David from That Moment In find each other and learn of their random, connected fates. A note in the box reads:

You must watch every 80s movie in this box. For each movie, a summary would be nice. Nothing crazy. Maybe something short. Your call. Then you must review the film! To do so, choose and describe these five moments: 1) The Best Moment 2) The stupidest Moment 3) That Special 80s Sexy Moment 4) The Now’s A Good Time to Take A Pee Break Moment and finally 5) The Most Cheesiest Silly Awesome Eighties Moment. Good luck. We are watching you.

Fifth out of the Box: Sheena (1984)

When David and I got together to discuss our strategy for continuing our 80s Encore series during Shitfest, we volleyed a few titles around while throwing some darts at the local pub. Eventually, David hit three triple twenties in a row, ending our game of Cricket and, as he peacocked around the bar in victory, he declared that we would be watching Sheena – “a shitty 80s movie filled with copious nudity”. I was all “sure” and went and found it and…….. I know we’re doing this during and for Shitfest but…… I actually kind of liked it. Make no mistake, it’s not GOOD, some of it is Shitfest bad but, in the end, I actually enjoyed it’s 80s naivety and innocence. Sheena – Tanya Roberts – continues her “Sword and Sandals” Beastmaster babe leading a jungle tribe of Africans against their city overlords, psychically commanding the beasts of the land to assist their plight. She’t totally hot, and totally rules this movie. Oh – and she gets fully naked a few times in this PG rated movie. You can’t get away with that any more over here. Let’s see what we’ve got here.

The Best Moment

I know that this may be superficial and you can yell at me if you want but Tanya Roberts is hot. The opening sequence finds her, as a kid, surviving some sort of cave disaster. She walks out of the cave or volcano or whatever and the local Shaman declares her The Chosen One. What follows was a little creepy watching a young girl parade around topless on a zebra, learning to use a bow and arrow and such but soon she changes as the opening credits roll. Over those opening titles, the footage is basically Roberts riding on a horse painted like a zebra, across a beach (in the African jungle) in slow motion with her tunic almost off. It was wonderful.

The Stupidest Moment

The character below wants Sheena dead. For one thing, she’s white and hot, another, her old man has been giving eyes to Sheena’s silky white form. To make a statement, the lady below (I’m terrible with names) is going to fly over Sheena’s village and dump her out of a helicopter, splattering her white remains all over the village huts. Not having any of this, Sheena psychically calls her flamingo friends from that beach she was riding around on to help her out. There is footage of birds flying but when we get to the helicopter, it’s pretty apparent they are using those pink flamingo statues you see everywhere (at least over here in the states). But that’s not the worst part, after the flamingos crash the party in the air, Sheena pushes the African Queen out of the helicopter and the dummy they use to show her falling is WHITE and the actress is NOT.

The Special 80s Sexy Moment

While I’m doing everything I can to not be too risque on David’s site, there’s a part in this that’s pretty wonderful. After escaping a pitiful attempt at murder at the hands of inept soldiers, they ride her zebra to some lake (in the African jungle) where Sheena decides to take a dip. First she strips nude and then plops in the water calling her man to come have a swim with her. He doesn’t really feel like it but considers it after she pops up, glistening, and splashes him a few times. It’s kind of difficult to account for in words but I would imagine the awkwardness here would be much like in Big Trouble in Little China in that water runoff tunnel when Kurt Russell says to Kim Catrrall “Would you please stop rubbing up against me, you’re making it very hard to concentrate.” I was really surprised at the nudity in this scene – not that I’m complaining, but there’s no way anyone could get away with that in a PG movie these days. Go #TeamSheena !

The Now’s a Good Time to Take a Pee Break Moment

After leading her herd into and subsequently storming the city, rescuing her bestie Shaman who has been accused of murder, Sheena heads back to the jungle to get her affairs in order. Naturally, she is followed by a reporter and his chunky cameraman and, right after a melodramatic scene where the Shaman is dying, she confronts the two men in their “strange metal box”. After some weirdness involving introducing her to a microphone and a tape recorder she imprisons them in some sort of “psychic circle” that they can’t escape from and “even the flies can’t get in” so she can go be with her Shaman as she dies and all of the animals in the jungle cry. Yep. Those were some sad elephants and monkeys.

The Most Cheesiest Silly Awesome 80s Moment:

As I mentioned up above, right after she lets these two turds free from the Psychic Circle, they are set upon by a group of soldiers who intend to eliminate their lives by shooting them with machine guns. Somehow, they fail miserably and Sheena and whatshisname run off into the jungle (while the cameraman speeds off in the Strange Metal Box). Not at all injured by the MASSIVE amount of gunfire aimed their way, they decide to climb a tree and hide for a while. Naturally, Sheena shimmies up the bark (exposing that she does wear underwear) while the city silcker reporter can’t quite get the hang of things. As the guerrillas approach, things start to get hairy so what does she do???? She lifts him into the high branches with……….. her foot.

O _ o

And there you have it! I know this sounds silly and I guess it is but I actually had a lot of fun with this. The acting is what it is and there’s a horse painted like a zebra but… I really kinda liked this and I would probably watch it again. I mean, not right now or something but I would totally DVR it and catch it some night when I’m by myself and drinking beer. If you’re interested, you should give it a shot!

Click on the almighty Beastmaster himself to see what David thought of this!